No longer a friend of Narnia
by GiraffeGirl
Summary: Oneshot, Susan's thoughts after the accident. Please read and review!


A/N: I wrote this for my university anthology... random! so it's pretty short because it had to fit into a word count... stifling our creative talents... ah well.

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Everyone was very sympathetic when it happened and said all the right things. How they were there if I needed anything and how strong I was being. It was nice; they must have thought they were helping. But I couldn't tell them what I was really feeling. That I wasn't feeling the grief they thought I was. Because I'd said goodbye to my brothers and sister a long time ago.

What the three of them didn't understand was that I hadn't chosen to be the responsible one who always looked on the safe side. The boring side. I hated being the one who always spoilt the others' fun, or at least tried to. I was just naturally more cautious, always thinking about the consequences of each action. Someone had to live in the real world, and none of them ever had. Ever since…

I think I grew apart from them the summer I was in America, when Peter was still studying, and Edmund and Lucy were at Aunt Alberta's house. They all envied me the chance to see America. I think my parents had grand plans for me, that I would be the one to marry well in the family, being the beauty. Father had met some American soldiers whilst he was fighting the war and he had told me many times of all the fun that a young girl such as myself could have over there. He didn't understand that I wasn't interested in those kinds of things. I didn't want to be separated from my brothers and sister for a whole summer. If only Professor Kirke had lived in that house still, we could have stayed together.

At first I was terribly homesick in America. Father was lecturing a great deal, and when he wasn't, he and Mother dedicated nearly all their time to each other.

"You don't want to spend all your time with us, Susan!" Father had said, when I asked if I could join them on an outing. "Go out and have a good time with some people your own age."

A few days after we'd arrived, we had been invited to dinner to meet an old army friend of Father's. He had two daughters both a little older than me. Jessie and Betsy Johnson were pretty and lively, and invited me to spend almost all my time with them. I knew they were a bit silly, with their preoccupation with dresses and make-up. If Lucy had been with me, then we would have laughed at them, and their strange ways. But with only them for company, I found myself falling under their spell and enjoying the attentions they lavished upon me. They gave little tinkly laughs at the clothes I'd brought with me, as apparently I was behind with the American fashions. It was fun to be treated like something other than the eldest daughter, who had to take care of the others. For once, I was the youngest and I was enjoying it.

At first, I received almost a letter a day from one of them back in England. Peter's were long letters, full of anecdotes about the Professor and the small village he was living in now. Somehow he always knew when I needed cheering up. Edmund's weren't as long, and were mainly about how awful it was living with our cousin Eustace. Lucy's were the most enjoyable; she'd obviously laboured long and hard over them, and they were covered in illustrations of the people and animals we'd known back when we'd been Kings and Queens. It was like getting a little slice of Narnia.

Then the letters became less frequent. Peter's studying had become more intense and he only wrote briefly, generally to apologise for not writing more often. Lucy wrote me a tome of a letter, detailing her latest adventure into that other world and then she'd stopped writing all together. Edmund still wrote, but it seemed he was doing it more out of duty than need. They'd moved on without me.

With no one to talk to about Narnia, I buried it deep inside. I'd seen how cruel Jessie and Betsy could be behind people's backs, laughing maliciously about things they'd said or done. I didn't want to be on the wrong side of those vicious tongues. They wouldn't understand Narnia, or what had happened there. Jessie had picked up one of Lucy's letters one day and read it, smiling.

"What a sweet little girl!" she'd said as she reached the end. "What imaginations children have!"

In America it had been easier to bury it all deep down than to say anything at all. When we returned to England, though, I found I couldn't reverse what I'd done. Whenever the four of us got in a room together, and started talking about it, I always found an excuse to get away from the conversation. I was out of practise and couldn't remember how to talk about it anymore.

"What imaginations you've all got!" I'd say, laughing like Betsy Johnson. "But really, Peter, you should know better!" Then I'd pat my hair down and check my lipstick in the mirror before leaving the room, my heart pounding inside my chest.

I wished I could be more like Lucy, who had never let anything change her beliefs. But I couldn't; I could barely even stand to hear her talk of it. They didn't understand; how could I talk of something that I had spent so long trying to forget? We couldn't live in a dream world forever. Aslan himself had said as much. We had to start living in our own world.

Only they hadn't. And so it is that at the age of twenty-one, I find myself not only an orphan, but an only child too. I wasn't invited on that last journey the others had gone on; though Peter had tried one last time to interest me in the whole business, I had chosen to visit some friends in Scotland instead. I'd hated the disappointment in his eyes that last time I saw him, and my mocking laugh still rings in my ears. I hate myself for what I did to my family, dividing us in two. If only I'd said what I was always thinking: _I remember_. I remembered everything about our adventures in Narnia, I loved every second and minute we'd spent together. But crying in the night and talking to the dead won't help anyone. I have to live in the real world now.


End file.
